“You are anything but boring, Lucan.” As I say the words, it hits me how true they are. He’s been my shadow for so many years, since we were just kids; I’ve never really let my thoughts dwell on him. He was the enemy. The vicar’s watchdog. But now I realize I’d never really given Lucan a chance to be anything more. Now that I have, I’m finding curiosity is getting the better of me.
“I assure you, I am. Orphaned and raised by the Creed, wanting to get into Mercy to avenge the misfortune that must have befallen my family… It’s such a standard story that you could throw a stone in any direction on the wall and hit a knight with similar motivations,” he laments somewhat mockingly.It is, but that doesn’t make it less traumatic. Then he adds so softly that I almost don’t hear him, “Plus,you’regoing to be there.”
Something in the rough timbre of his voice sets butterflies loose in my stomach. “Because the vicar asked you to keep watch over me?” I ask.
“I told you once, and I’ll tell you a hundred times: Screw the vicar.” That elicits a smirk from me, but it’s abandoned quickly when he adds, “Not to keep watch over you. Though I will always protect you, if you’ll let me. And not because of the vicar, or the Creed, or Valor Reborn, or any superstition or titles.”
My heart catches. Those are all the reasons anyone in Vinguard has ever cared about me, outside of my family and Saipha. “Then why?”
“Because it’syou.” His gaze is steady.
I swallow and force myself to ask, “Butwhy?”
He’s looking at me as if he hasn’t looked at me nearly every day of his life for years. “So many reasons, but the first is because of that day six years ago… You saved me that day.”
Wait. That makes no sense. My hunger must be affecting my mind. I scoot a bit closer to him. “What are you talking about?”
“I was there that day. On the rooftop with you.”
His words hit my chest with the same force as the cannon shot to the green dragon.
I’m suddenly back on that rooftop. The rubble. All those bodies scattered around, dead.
Was Lucan one of the people I’d thought dead?
“You were there,” I repeat. “Which means you survived, too?”
He nods.
“I—” The words stick in my throat. It all begins to click into place. Why Lucan, even though he hates the vicar, remained in the Creed. Why he was drawn to me—would want to look after me. Why he endured the vicar’s horrors just to stay on a path parallel to mine. Not because I was supposed to be a legendary hero, but because I’d beenhishero.
And that’s why he was appalled when he first saw my terror at a dragon. He’d seen me as someone who saved his life, and there I was, running scared from the very first moment I was tested.
But right now, he looks at me with sheer admiration. I’ve seen it from him before, but I always thought him a zealot of the Creed. Now that I know where that admiration comes from, the truth inspires panic. It’s somehow worse than all the rest of Vinguard seeing me as their savior.
I actually saved him.And I don’t even remember him. I couldn’t even do it again if I tried. Guilt slips between my ribs, squeezing my scarred heart until it aches.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”
“You passed out from your injuries and the surge of Ether. I was unconscious when you would’ve seen me anyway. Iunderstood perfectly why you wouldn’t have known.” His tone makes it clear there’s no animosity.
And just like that, a weight shifts in my chest. That day, that moment that had othered me—that placed me on an unreachable podium to most—is now shared with someone else.I wasn’t alone.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“The vicar said not to.” He shrugs.
“Why didn’tyoutell me? Screw the vicar, after all, right?”
Lucan’s lips quirk in a wry smile, one I mirror. “You’re right. Outside of here, we never really spoke. And it didn’t feel like something I could just come out with right away when the Tribunal started.” Lucan pushes off the lockbox, standing. “So, I tried to look out for you as best I could, what little I could manage over the years.”
I look away, rubbing my scar, replaying that day in my mind. If I’m not careful, it’s so easy to get lost in the memories. Which is why I usually avoid them at all costs—I don’t want to remember that day, don’t want to let it have a hold on me.
But, for the first time in maybe ever, I let myself remember. To see it with a slightly new and different lens.
Mum has a meeting with some of her other guildmembers. The guildhall is small and always smells of soil. I love going because the saplings they cultivate are tiny wonders. To think, from dirt, things could be grown—that, long ago, the world was filled with green and not the pale stone of streets and buildings, or the rust of the scourge, or the scars of dragon attacks.
I can’t hear what they’re speaking about—it’s always behind closed doors. But it sounds…tense. Even at twelve, I can tell that much.
